Pages

Wednesday, 3 April 2013

4th April 1933 - Mary to Terrick

TuesdayDear Terrick- This is really dreadful - I got in at seven - read your gorgeous letter (I loved every bit of it) - ate my supper with great speed - and long before I have had time to digest it properly here I am lying full length on my bed upstairs (they're playing bridge in the drawing-room - & it's much too distracting) writing to you again - as if my life depended on it! and I'm sure it would be much more satisfactory if I waited a bit longer - specially as I'm writing to a person like you! But, you see it's the middle of the week I can't pick my letter writing times (I must find some excuse!)- Yes - it was an exceedingly nice letter - I love your trying to be impersonal - it makes me so quizzy - please what did you "hope that I might-"?Three cheers for your temptation! - though I must say, if it really was just like you said it was, I can't possibly imagine why you didn't fall - even temporarily - because you won't make me believe (all those miles out there) that you're deeply rooted enough here! - you go up all the more in my admiration because I'm sure I couldn't have stuck it out if I'd been in your place - and things are hardly fair as it is - because I shall never have an equivalent chance to show you what I'd do!!Poor Girl, I should have been cross - the nicest male within radius - and with all her feminine whiles and charm - oh - & moonlight etc. (lucky dog) all she gets is a scornful laugh - metaphorically speaking. You know it's very difficult to decide which party deserves the most sympathy!- I'm fed to the back teeth (the false ones) with the P.T.A. - do you think it would have any effect if I wrote & asked them to let you come back? - just to see my new frock before it gets worn out? - They'd know which one I meant because I'd put 'that one with the charming smile - clean teeth and authoritative swagger, who you employ to sit behind glass partitions and entice young & innocent female clients to become a permanency upon your booking list' - and of course I have only to add 'he speaks German and is possessed of greater common sense than one would think of on looking at him' - for them to write back at once and say 'Dear enticed female client, we are well acquainted with the young rep. in question - but owing to his being more valuable to us than rubies (due solely to the clean teeth and other charms you mention) we are detailing him to the Fijii Islands immediately - where - we are confident, he will add greatly to the already large feminine clientele travelling on our books.'- What do you think?We're having a motor treasure hunt the Sunday after Easter - no hope I suppose? We spent all last Sunday picnicing - boiling our own kettle & picking primroses in the most heavenly thickets where the sun poured in thin streaks through on to their yellow patches - you would have loved it, dash it! - We want to go to the sea next Sunday & bathe - but what I miss so much on these occasions is a kindred spirit to see and feel the same things as I do. You insinuate (with many apologies) that you've met your fate - well I've met a correspondent whom I wouldn't believe could have existed. You're my perfect person to write to, and to write to me - so perhaps, really, it's nicer having you where you are - except that this way we have to miss such a lot out.- You see, I've still got to explain to you why I dislike you being personal - it's quite a sensible reason too!What is Paul thinking of? - you men make me want to laugh one minute and weep for you the next - fancy kissing a girl in Hyde Park when he has only known her about a month! - Do you think he's just bowled over by outside? Look after him, won't you? It quite worries me to think there may be thousands of silly fools all over the place getting engaged to people's outsides. Marriage, as an institution, needs scrapping altogether at the moment, and starting again on a new and completely different basis - we look at it from absolutely the wrong angle. It's purely physical through the spiritual- and marriage without either one or the other shared mutually is only half-witted. And it's no use delving for the spiritual behind the physical, because our senses are so essentially far & away bigger things than our bodies.- Oh, Mary, what are you gassing about? - Sorry - it just came - but I could really go on quite heatedly for hours.People expect such a terrific lot from it before they're married - and then give it nothing substantial to thrive on afterwards - so it just dies and you get the world fuller & fuller of battered children who can't believe in the depth of anything, and dither about on the surface of life giving nothing, getting nothing out of it and dying off exact replacas of their forefathers.- For heaven's sake shut up child, he's thinking how really very young you must be, - anyway, I'll improve on next page.- This is the last piece of paper I've got - & it's really time I had my bath I suppose.I'll give Norah your messages tomorrow - she hates the job, though really - one nasty little man called Tüm bosses her about from morning till night & puts her back up - & Norah with her back up, you know, is worse than the Devil!! - But she still likes me - which is all that matters these days.- This week I have been working like a navvy - oh I had a 5/- rise last Friday!!! - so I'm now the proud & thankful earner of 25/- per week! (Norah gets £3!!) Katie (Phillips) has her brighter spots (such as an emerald green jumper with orange stripes) - but she's simply obsessed with people falling under tube trains and the remarkable dishonesty of the world in general - especially those people whose eyebrows meet in the middle!! (mine are inclined that way - so I'm getting a bit worried in case she notices and starts locking her pursebag and Daily Mirror up!)My new dress is a sort of grey background with small black & red ovals on it - with slit shoulders, high, straight neck & sash round the middle. I've also got a new black & white check skirt & my pyjamas (which I'm longing to wear - but can't find a special enough occasion) are stunning!- I didn't have to actually go into the Guildhall - but I would simply love to go over it one day - are there really dungeons? - couldn't Renny take us both when you come back one day?- Well - I must hie myself to the bathroom - or the water will be cold.- I'll leave this space in case I think of something worth escubing, when submerged beneath the embalming ?? somnambulance of hot water.

* * * *

- No - I'm afraid it didn't - In fact I forgot all about you and this and just thought other thoughts.

At the moment I'm in bed & have just consumed 2 cakes and imbibed a cup of lukewarm tea, consequently my bed is full of crumbs - Jill is saying her prayer & sends her love.

- What I'd give to be canoeing across your 'blue breadth of sea without a break'

- Grannie's just come in to kiss us goodnight - & has made the fabulous remark that I must be 'very fond' of you to write this much every week - I am covered with confusion 'as with a mantle' and hastily say 'oh, no I'm not' - most emphatically - but they'll never understand.

Love Mary

P.S. I shouldn't take any notice of Paul's 'eye on the middle-distant future' - specially if it's Brenda!